Lines of Predestination
by Juki
Summary: Song fic - Sweet Surrender (Sarah McLachlan). Inuyasha reflects on his past, Kikyou and Kagome. He finally chooses... RR


Lines of Predestination

By: Juki

                          Stripped. Five decades can escape through the trembling gaps of his fingers and still linger. He marveled at the ravages of time, how its poignant talons crept beneath his skin and peeled his being away year after year to leave behind nothing but a twisted echo of his preceding glory. Touches of gold, refined by fires of turmoil, searched the hazed lifelines of his palms for a question. What met his eye astounded him. Just grooves, they are just grooves carved by the affliction of those who touched his soul, which marks the living graves pulsing plainly in his hand.

                 _It doesn't mean much_...

         _It doesn't mean anything at all_...

         Two crevices conjoined in one, the endorsement of two melting lives. The sadness that grips him. He understands now. When two souls merge into one, one will always be lost in the darkness of the other. The dangerous gleam of his talons slowly shrouded the curse of his hands then gently flung into the air to fall. He gently veiled his eyes as his arm died and fell limp beside him, swaying lifelessly with the midnight wind. His fingers blossomed to unravel what he had embraced as his past...now fluently washed away by the tide, which he simply forgot to forget.

                          _The life I've left behind me_...

                 _Is a cold room_.

         _I've crossed the last line,_

                          _From where I can't return_...

                 Sallow pillars of moon pierced through his attempt to fly and chained him to the limits of all men. He allowed himself to be rocked by the dais he perched himself on tonight, which whispered gentle reminders of the same story he once spent fifty years to narrate. Serenity will always gnaw at the gaping wounds of his heart and tranquility will always resonate. "How could -...I thought..." His dagger tongue failed to pierce her and only fumbled to its knees before the only beauty he ever found in what he absolutely loathed. His fingertips grazed the immobile throb of his chest as silence licked at the infectious venom...

                 _Where every step I took in faith_...

         _Betrayed me_.

                          _Then led me from my home_...

         Lost breath, lost life...and the vivacious desire of completion lucidly unraveled from his hands and flung out of his destiny. His own breath echoed in the inner core of his mind, remembering the clenching sinew of his heart cringing against the lofty knife plunged deep into his flesh. He remembers dying. Death. Too far away now. His talons seized the pain as he erected from the comfort of the open armed tree to remember. Her living grave caressed his wound, and the afflicted crevices of those who touched his soul gently settled beside the scar concealed by pride and vengeance.

                 Unlocked. Torrents of the past rained abundantly to drench him with memories. Nothing could contrast the agony of betrayal, not even the buckling moment of his life as it strained to a blistering strand. His mouth is jarred by injustice as his arms wove painfully around the slender body of her desire for him to die. "_Die Inuyasha_." Countless times, it had been said, almost as copiously as the stretch of stars across the sky. It didn't mean much. His promise...didn't mean anything at all. His triggered frame bucked against the tree as the apex of the arrow overwhelmed him...successfully pinning him against the tree like a sick ornament to ornate their unspeakable union of hate and love.

         The unveil of his eyes quickened nature's breath as its eager fingers combed through the archaic strands of his silver tress. Spindles of it tugged at his face, looming over the fire she had set on his mouth by a kiss and the bitter taste hanging on his tongue from her poison. The voluptuous curve of her body perfectly surrounding his...and her soul blanched from betrayal and hate...their home here...and this arrow had shattered all of this in one mindless blur of hate, when it killed him, it killed her too.

                          _Sweet surrender_...

                 _It's all that I have_..._to give_...

                          "_You're_..._alive_?" She exhaled and released his captured soul with the desperate hope of his salvation. Ironic...he thought she would be here to save him. The warmth of her hand against his heart rushed a vapor of life and it pulsed, his heart beats again. Cherished by immortality, he allowed a glance of lingered yearning to escape...to inhale her again like the air that he once required to live... Ka-go-me. A smile. "Kagome." He whispered and as the name settled, his heart throbbed with new life and new purpose.

         _You take me in_,

                 _No questions asked_.

                          _         You strip away the ugliness_...

                          _That surrounds me_...

                 Majestic flight and his wings unfolded into glistening scarlet. Silenced descend against his callused soles. Whilst the moon pierced through him, it only blanketed her with golden kisses...beautifully shrouding her in light amidst of darkness. He approached her with caution, with shame. Would his past contaminate her? Would _he_...contaminate her? He halted and worshipped her from afar, his redeemer, his air... His arms gracefully succumbed in awe and draped by his side, he is a lost child longing for her embrace.

         His heart tugged forward, ramming against his ribcage and he staggered onward with one sluggish drag. Drawn...captivated...his fingers flinched in fear as he watched his shadow devour her light, which caused him to stop again. He only stared, his soul unworthy of her touch and he is filthy...reeking and dripping with blood. "_Inuyasha_..." She exhaled, entranced by her dream and she invited him. "Hmm?" He answered and clung onto her calling as the only salvation he can reach in the direst sanction of misery.

                          _Who are you_?

                 _Are you an angel?_

                                  _Am I already that gone_?

                          A mighty tower, he sheltered her from his tempest...but she always liked the storm. The intensity of his gaze seared a hole through her covers as he slowly fell to his knees beside her. His ocher eyes opened, and he woke up from the entrapment of the past. A coma...he opened his eyes to only close them again in peace. Crowned by obsidian gold, rosebud lips, and the tinted ivory of her intangible visage...the evolved reflection of Kikyou...her name is Kagome.

         _I only hope_...

                 _That I won't disappoint you_...

                          _When I'm down here_...__

_                 On my knees_...

                 He reclined beside her, his arm folded to support his head as he watched the delicate rise and fall of her chest in midst of sound slumber. The answer to his unasked question. He slowly drew close, only when he is beside her like this could he abandon the fears of shrouding her light...paralleled now...and he smiled to his sweet surrender. Extending his reach along with the slightest incision to distance and it is shattered. His talon loomed over and with a genteel dip, tucked the lose strands behind her ear to gloriously proclaim her forgotten beauty.

         He marveled at her purity and remembered the once innocent self he allowed to slip away. "My heart lives for you." He admitted and watched as his mind succumbed to the will of his heart. His wrist pivoted as the back of his hand graced over the endless terrain of porcelain in affectionate caress. His eyes slightly averted from her sweetness to the quivering slate of his palm...and intrigued, he halted to study the new thread of lifeline veering from the previous groove of the past...to establish a new terrain. His eyes widened and he turned to her...who is she? Who is she to change fate? Who is she...to touch his soul and survive? "Who are you?"

                 Her eyes snapped open, startled at the closeness of his body against hers and for a moment...security and relief. His hand hovered over her cheek and the strong erects of lethal claws... She shrunk beneath her covers, afraid to shatter his moment of serenity until he became aware of her consciousness. It expelled all means of barriers and she softened to the warmth of his body. He narrowed his eyes habitually, out of fear...could she know? In turn, she flushed and fidgeted. "Why are you so close?" She demanded. "Why are _you_ so close?" He asked her in return. 

"Don't answer my question with a question!" She heaved. "I was just marveling..." He admitted and she gasped from his honesty. "I was marveling at..." He slowly rolled onto his back and diverted his gaze to the impossible distance of the stars... "I was marveling at how you consider others even in your sleep..." She blushed shyly, "What do you mean?" She urged...a word of praise...is he ill? "I mean you think of the grass even in your sleep...that you would willingly drool an ocean on them so they won't get thirsty." She cringed and reddened. He released a dry chuckle, his tongue never failed him when he resided with her and he never fumbled to his knees by obligation, he fell upon them for the sake of her. She laughed with him, a feign laugh and slowly shifted to roll around. As she pivoted, she sharply exhaled, "Sit." And he fell prostrate to the ground...

_Sweet surrender_...

                 _It's all that I have_..._to give_...


End file.
